You’ll be happy to know that after months of delays, I’ve finally been able to order a copy of Scott Wolter’s new book, From Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers: Mysteries of the Hooked X®, which I should receive sometime next week. You can look forward to a thrilling chapter-by-chapter review of…what exactly? I’m not sure, but we’ll find out together. Wolter also gave a two-hour interview yesterday to Rita Louise of Just Energy Radio, an ancient astronaut theorist and a “medical intuitive” who promotes a wide range of “alternative” and New Age systems for cash. If you think, though, that I have time to sit through two hours of talk about the Kensington Rune Stone, you have another thing coming. I jumped around and listened to excerpts because I’ve heard most of what he had to say many, many times before. The complete interview is below followed by some thoughts.

Things did not start off well when Wolter repeated his claims that scientists and scholars are ignoring him and his work and are conspiring to suppress the truth. As he later says, “Academics who quite frankly didn’t know what the heck they were talking about” are freezing out normal, everyday people who have something to say about lost white invaders of Minnesota. It’s nearly word-for-word identical to his recent interviews on other shows, and, frankly, it’s tiresome. “I found out there was apparently some paradigm in history that no one was there before Columbus,” he said, “and I didn’t know that that was the rule, and I broke the rule apparently.” Thus he reveals that his knowledge of history extends to 1950s textbooks and not much beyond. Obviously, Columbus never set foot in the United States, and it has been established since the 1960s (and widely believed before that) that the Vikings were the first Europeans to make landfall in North America. I’ll admit that his next claim is a new one on me. Pay careful attention to the sleight of hand here: Wolter claims that the Kensington Rune Stone (KRS) is in the Golden Ratio (!) and, in summarizing the text of the KRS, now claims that the Northmen listed on the stone are not Norse, but rather “I’m beginning to think it means Normans,” specifically “French” Normans. Oh, how clever. These Normans, of course, are the progenitors of the Santo Claro-St. Clair-Sinclair Holy Bloodline of Templar Kings, thus allowing Wolter to fold the KRS into his Templar conspiracy more fully. But it ought to be fairly obvious that the Anglo-French Normans were long and far removed from the Northmen who gave them their name. The KRS uses the word “norrmen,” while the Normans were typically called Norðmaðr and Norwegians could be either Norðmaðr or Norrœnn in Old Norse, Latinized as Nortmanni, and given as Normand in Swedish. Never mind that by 1362, thanks to the Hundred Years’ War, the Normans had come to self-identify as English, Scottish, French, Neapolitan, etc. and were no longer a distinct ethnic group, nor did any of them use Old Swedish or Old Norse, the language of the KRS, as their preferred language. But the linguistic arguments are irrelevant because Wolter wants to move the authors of the KRS from the north of Europe to its heartland where the Templars and the Sinclairs were in better evidence, all the more “evidence” for the Holy Bloodline “theory.” Thus, as Wolter “translates” the KRS, it now has sprouted “French” people privy to the secrets of the Hooked X®, since as we all know, the Normans conquered the Merovingians, who were the guardians of the Holy Blood in the conspiracy literature. Only by ejecting the Norse and making the Götlanders into servants of the Normans can the KRS become “proof” of Templar-Sinclair penetration of America in the name of claiming the Mississippi watershed for the Holy Bloodline Grail Kings.

Based on who I’m convinced created this—well, first of all I know there’s more going on with this inscription than it appears to be on its face—there are codes embedded within it, there’s double-dating, and who knows what else. I think a lot of the inscription is probably allegory and code, and I don’t know if it would be a good idea to take it just as it reads.

In short, the KRS does not support the Holy Bloodline theory as written, and it is only by rejecting everything about the stone that we can re-create it in the image of the Holy Bloodline and the Templars. This method of inquiry frees us from facts and allows us to fill the gap with fancy and fantasy in support of nearly any idea we wish to impose upon it. To wit: The stone is “evidence” of the “land acquisition” and “land claim” but we must also reject the actual words—including the specific word acquisition that Wolter used to spin the land claim yarn—to find the hidden Templar Bloodline conspiracy? Methinks one cannot have it both ways. Wolter also returned to his new favorite theme: The U.S. government is conspiring to hide the truth to maintain its legitimacy.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I really believe that this all goes back to Manifest Destiny in this country. And what I mean by that is that there were a couple of tenets in that doctrine that basically set the precedent for what we’re dealing with today. One is that the Native Americans are savages, not Christians, and therefore it’s OK to persecute them because we’ve got to get rid of them and, you know, we want this land. The other things is there was nobody here prior to us, so this is virgin land free for the taking. Right? That’s basically what the two main tenets were. But let me ask you this: What do you think would happen along the way when you know they found a Kensington Rune Stone or a Bat Creek Stone or something that told them that somebody from the other side of the Pond was here before us? What does that do to Manifest Destiny?

At this point Louise jumps in to say that such issues would threaten America because by “denying” Columbus, “they”—it is not clear if she meant Native Americans or Europeans—would say “we’ll just take our land back—ha, ha, ha, ha.” The “ha” was the anti-Americans sneering, not Louise giggling. Wolter replies by saying he thinks Thomas Jefferson and Lewis and Clark had knowledge of “things like the Kensington Rune Stone.” Zebulon Pike, he said, was also in on the conspiracy to find and destroy “land claim stones” to secure America. It makes my head hurt. We’ve been over this before, so I will spare you Wolter’s misunderstandings. Suffice it to say that Andrew Jackson endorsed the ancient white race theory in a speech to Congress, senators and representatives debated which white people were really here first, and every American and European government eagerly sought evidence of various ancient European colonies in America, which they trumpeted to all who could hear, as a way of justifying oppression of Native Americans—the “we were here first” argument. Manifest Destiny, incidentally, was more of a media strategy than anything; the government never formally adopted it as an official policy, and prominent politicians like U.S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and (late in life) John Quincy Adams rejected it. Its most prominent use had nothing to do with taking land from Native Americans (whom all European powers agreed had no real right to it) but rather to take land from Mexico in the Mexican War! Wolter claims that America was the place where the Templars came to practice religious freedom, and he claims that they married Native Americans—which he says Native Americans told him themselves. He also believes this “truth” (that Native Americans are hybrid French-Scottish Templars) will “come out” because “it’s in the blood,” as in the DNA tests Steve St. Clair is doing, which Wolter hopes will prove that Sinclair DNA flows in Native American blood. Louise claims, and Wolter agrees, that Native Americans have “Jewish” blood. (The allegedly Jewish DNA is actually a DNA marker shared with populations of Siberian or Central Asian ancestry, as some Ashkenazi Jews and all Native Americans are.) Wolter adds that this is “the tip of the iceberg,” but that he can’t reveal the DNA results he’s been privy to, which supposedly show Native Americans are “really” European Holy Bloodline migrants. He says that “the internet” and “cell phones” will prevent academics from using a “nonsensical review process” to suppress these findings the way peer review suppressed earlier research. As the interview wheezes to a conclusion after almost half an hour of bashing academics, Wolter talks about Cahokia. He celebrates the city for Monk’s Mound, the earthen pyramid whose perimeter is larger than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Wolter claims that the Knights Templar are responsible for the collapse of Cahokia. He dismisses all scientific and archaeological explanations for the Mississippian collapse such as ecological degradation—calling them racist claims that Native people were too stupid to maintain their cities—and instead argues that his Native informants told him (700 years after the fact) that the Knights Templar warned the Native Americans that they (the Templars) were coming, so the Natives picked up and left to make way for the superior spiritual power of the Great White Hope. He says that the Natives had a prophecy that they had to “abandon their cities and go wild if they had any chance to survive” the coming of the Knights Templar. And this is the non-racist story. Wolter is upset that archaeologists scoffed at this theory. “You know what I say to them? Prove me wrong.” Cahokia was not suddenly abandoned in 1312 when the imaginary Templar fleet arrived. It began a long, slow decline, usually dated to around 1200, but was still occupied, at least partially, until about 1400. The Mississippian chiefdoms began to disintegrate in the 1200s—a century before the Templars “invaded” America. A similar collapse happened at Teotihuacan in Mexico around 500-600 CE, but I don’t see anyone claiming white visitors scared all the Native Mexicans away there.

Do you have your ticket ready for the express train to Hell? Maybe you and Wolter can share a seat!

It will be amusing to see how the faux Sinclair will spin this latest revelation. And thanks for keeping us up-to-date on Wolter's recent junket...what with that nasty obsession you have, you know. I think Wolter has officially taken residence in Kookville.

As John Adams said, "Facts are stubborn things...".

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Shane Sullivan

9/13/2013 12:00:15 pm

For that matter, I'm interested in seeing how Runestone enthusiasts will react- you know, the ones who really really want Minnesota to have been settled by "Vikings" (yeah, I know, actually post-Viking-age Scandinavians) and not Normans.

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Gunn

9/15/2013 03:36:49 am

You speak of Wolter and Hell as though you aren't sitting next to him in that seat, yourself. Only Me, you lie on this blog, and you seem devilish enough to perhaps be wary of yourself. If I were you, I wouldn't trust my brain, because of this devilish influence.

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Thane

9/13/2013 09:18:20 am

I really don't get this insistence that somehow "previous land claims" would mean anything to anyone.

The world has a history of people conquering other peoples and taking their land. Heck! It's so much easier to do when the people who "claim" the land aren't even there.... such as the missing 'vikings' or 'Normans"

Reminds me of the scene in Lion in Winter wherein Henry II and King Phillip of France are arguing about the return of The Vexin, an area in France that was part of Princess Alix of France's dowry. She lived in Henry's household since a child and was never married to any of his sons. Phillip wanted The Vexin back....and Henry schooled him.

I can't find the video of the scene from the 1968 movie but it's powerful. So, here's the specific exchange I reference:

Henry II: The Vexin's mine.
Philip II: By what authority?
Henry II: It's got my troops all over it; that makes it mine.

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mike fedele

9/13/2013 09:18:23 am

Wow..this is like the old TV show the X files...conspiracies on conspiracies...everything connected..jumps in logic..and so many theories that its hard to tie them all together in the end..it becomes a dense blob of nuianced assumptions and conjectures..building on each other...

You know you're in deep when the "evidence" for your conspiracy is other conspiracies!

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Thane

9/13/2013 01:21:25 pm

Foucault pendulum-ish, no?

Jonathan

9/13/2013 04:14:15 pm

"Foucault pendulum-ish, no?"

That was my first thought, too.

The Other J.

9/13/2013 04:15:07 pm

*thumbs up to Thane*

The Other J.

9/13/2013 09:24:16 am

Wolter argues non-specialists should be allowed to do archaeology and history as they see fit and have their findings be accepted. If only medicine were done that way, just imagine. If teachers could alter facts as deemed necessary, it'd be a hell of a lot easier teaching the rules of grammar and syntax.

I think that's an important point to reiterate about Manifest Destiny being an ad campaign, and not a governmental program. A few years back I taught some Cormac McCarthy, and had to introduce a history of the Western; most of my students didn't realize Manifest Destiny wasn't official (and the rest weren't aware of it at all). For Wolter to argue "What does that do to Manifest Destiny?" is kind of like arguing what the Pepsi Challenge means to Coca-Cola.

Not to mention that Manifest Destiny applied to the desert southwest, the Rocky Mountains, California, and the Oregon Territory--all areas that are NOT part of Wolter's "land claim."

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J Garlow

8/26/2015 11:38:11 am

Did you know that the Doctrine of Discovery from papal bulls of the 15th century were upheld by the Supreme Court in case Johnson v. M'Intosh in 1823?

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Gunn

9/13/2013 01:20:31 pm

I feel like today's my birthday, except that I'm trying to ignore them.

Concerning the KRS, Wolter says: "I don’t know if it would be a good idea to take it just as it reads."

And Jason and others here (the BR Collective) don't want to take it for anything but fraud.

Yet I see no reason not to take it for what it says. Yes, there was fishing. Yes, there was redrum. Yes, there was early Manifest Destiny-like behavior...if one cares to call land-grabbing that.

The Northmen? This looks like a good one for Richard Neilsen, the runic language specialist of Earth. I would take his academic word for what is meant by Northmen, or whatever is actually being communicated. We may recall that Dr. Neilsen has recently helped open the door to the KRS's possible (academic) legitimacy by showing how its manner of dating fits in with established (Greenland Runestone) dating of the period. In other words, he did away with a very early objection.

We definitely need to know about this word, and about its clearest translation. I will endeavor to email Dr. Neilsen about this word. Perhaps these men could have been from anywhere geographically considered North within that NW European, medieval community. Perhaps Frenchmen who had escaped France (Friday the 13th--hello!) would eventually be considered Northmen. Hello French Sinclairs! Welcome to the Northland of Scotland. Not far enough? Welcome to the Northland of Scandinavia. Still not far enough? Well, there's always Vinland.

Anyway, at least Wolter is willing to listen to Native Americans, eager to hear what they have to say.

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Gunn

9/13/2013 01:41:08 pm

To date, I believe this is the most accurate translation of the KRS we can find:

http://www.richardnielsen.org//PDFs/Inscription%20Panel.pdf

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Isaac

9/13/2013 04:54:50 pm

Color me confused.
Are you supporting Scott Wolter's new assertion that it was in fact Frenchmen who carved the Kensington Runestone? But then what about the *clearly Scandinavian* carving of a boat you were harping on about? What about the *obviously Nordic* axe in the KRS museum?

If there are such clearly Norse artifacts scattered about the countryside around the KRS, why do you need to consult the "runic language specialist of Earth" (as opposed to all those Martian rune experts we keep hearing about...)? Unless the medieval Norsemen were part of a different pre-Columbian expedition than the French Templar Normans? Oh, hey, maybe the two groups met and fought it out over who got to claim this new land, and that is why all those guys were red with blood and death?

I don't think this is "Jason's Waterloo" so much as the Wolter Armada being battered by harsh storms of legitimate criticism.

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Clint Knapp

9/13/2013 06:14:34 pm

Clearly the Normans boat-jacked the Norse and stole some of their weapons so they could fight off those violent natives who murdered them, but their inexperience with the heavy Scandinavian weaponry would ultimately lead to their demise at the hands of those savages. Lucky for us, they had plenty of time to carve a stone about it in a language they also inexplicably borrowed...

This post brought to you by "Blog Rats"- because when you have to call someone names and suggest they fling excrement, denouncing them as "Blog Rats" will allow you to maintain that moral high ground you so desperately need.

Shane Sullivan

9/13/2013 06:25:32 pm

Clint, don't forget that the Normans, in addition to taking the time to carve the stone, also *encoded* it!

The Other J.

9/14/2013 12:13:24 am

The mystery will be what language the actual decoded message is in. Norman French? Old Norse? My bet is ancient Templar hobo symbols.

Isaac

9/14/2013 06:27:33 am

I don't think "Blog Rats" is a very flattering name, but in the newfangled tradition of groups of fans naming themselves (like the "Beliebers" or "Directioners") I propose that we fans of Jason Colavito who take to debating stuff in the comments refer to ourselves as "Argue-nauts"

I think it has a nice ring to it.

Only Me

9/13/2013 10:23:04 pm

Since we're talking about the KRS again, I thought I'd share something I found you might find interesting. It relates to the stone holes you like to mention in conjunction with the KRS.

At first, I tried to find any info that showed the use of these stone holes as land markers, as you've proposed. I didn't find anything useful. I did find this tidbit, though; those same stone holes have been found in not only Minnesota and the Dakotas, but also Illinois, the eastern seaboard and on about 300 boulders scattered on the Great Plains. An example was discovered after Hurricane Fran in North Carolina in 1996.

Obviously, these all can't be examples of Viking "mooring stones", especially when you consider the elevation of such stones found in Pope County, and the geographical separation of North Carolina and the Great Plains from Minnesota and the Dakotas. However, the triangular cross-section and almost uniform dimensions of the stone holes, where ever they are found, means they all aren't placeholders for dynamite during blasting operations, either.

So, what could their purpose, if there is one, be? Here's something to think about; they may be left behind when tourmaline crystals are weathered out of the boulders. Tourmaline is a long, slender to thick prismatic and columnar crystal that is usually triangular in cross-section, distinguished by its three-sided prisms; no other common mineral has three sides.

And for those that love sources, go to www.science-frontiers.com and type "triangular holes" into the search bar. That should pull up the same articles I read.

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The Other J.

9/14/2013 12:19:54 am

Nice find. Here's an image of what that triangular tourmaline would look like: http://bit.ly/1918VCN

Thane

9/14/2013 04:43:46 am

That's pretty and I want one.

Just thought I'd mention it as the gift-giving season is only a few months away!

Gunn

9/14/2013 04:48:52 am

Only me, you're grasping at straws.

What will we do about all the aged, triangulated stoneholes in our presence...especially those surrounding Runestone Hill? I can only say that one day they will be seen as part of the fabric of history. Until then, they will be an irritant to skeptics, a puzzlement to overcome, if possible. I believe we'll end up finding out that the majority were used in an attempt to fulfill a sort of early Manifest Destiny. Feel free to use the term "land grab," certainly nothing new.

Only Me

9/14/2013 05:56:49 am

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...predictable as ever, Gunn.

"I added food for thought"...as did I, with a perfectly plausible explanation. Alternate hypothesis, speculation, thinking outside the box...what you allegedly do, right? Of course, you turn about and dismiss the idea, as I knew you would.

Oh, well, I tried. Whimsical fantasy, held with the fervor of a zealot, does not a reasoned debate make.

Gunn

9/15/2013 03:46:17 am

Only Me, you're getting dumber and dumber on this blog. I wish you were smarter so I could reason with you, but it's hopeless. You're only adding unnecessary confusion with your simple-mindedness.

Gunn

9/18/2013 06:30:45 am

Just an update. I sent an email to a professor named Norrman who studies medieval times, for her input, if possible.

Googling, I found a "Norrmen House," in Finland, which makes me wonder about that choice of name in that country.

I wonder what Norrman meant to Swedes in the time period of the mid-Fourteenth Century? I wonder what the word meant to Olaf Olman in 1898, if anything in particular?

We need professional advice about the history of this word, or at least what it meant in NW Europe in 1362.

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CFC

9/13/2013 02:05:03 pm

Jason - That's great that you are going to review the new Scott Wolter book chapter by chapter. We won't need to buy the book and can donate the money to you using your donate button!!! Sweet!!!

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Dave Lewis

9/13/2013 04:02:10 pm

I've been listening to Coast to Coast AM for several years. I enjoy hearing fantastic stories, I don't believe any of it. It's entertainment.

I've noticed that the guests usually have a new book that they're pushing. They will make the rounds of the paranormal talk shows and say the same thing on each show.

The guests have to come up with new material to be invited back to C2Cam. Whitley Streiber is usually on twice each year and always has new schtick. Nobody needs to hear about how the alien proctologists examined him a second time!

Dave Lewis

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Gunn

9/14/2013 04:38:44 am

I heard that Clint experienced an alien proctology exam...nothing was found, leaving the aliens to wonder what happened to all his crap. Well, slyly, we know. It was deposited here.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder if it would be possible for medieval French explorers, in the company of Scandinavians, to use Scandinavian weapons?

Much of what Wolter comes up with, I disagree about. But if he wants to hypothesize about French explorers coming to MN before the 1600's, that's okay with me. Who were the 22 Northmen? So far, nobody knows, so the debate is wide open. We already know that 8 men came from Gotaland, Sweden. Also, I wonder which men were killed, which men stayed back near Duluth with the boat/s, etc.

Northmen only hints at who the majority of the men were. They could have been nearly any who lived, even temporarily, in what was considered North back then. This could include any Scandinavians and any Scotsmen and any Frenchmen, Englishmen, Irishmen, etc. Italian? Not so likely, though possible, too. Is Northmen a race? Probably not, but maybe. We need to know more about this translated word.

The horse is not dead, by any means. Thanks for not giving up on the KRS, Jason. Shetland ponies, anyone?

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Only Me

9/16/2013 06:08:50 pm

One of the major questions I had about the KRS involved the assertion that it proclaimed a land grab. This is because the inscription has been translated many times. One of two popular translations has it stating the men were on a "journey of exploration", while Nielsen's states "(this?) acquisition journey".

Then there is the matter of the stone holes. In my research, I've read that some believe the stone holes represent a "location grid", to mark the location of the KRS. Other hypotheses include mooring stones, places to pack black powder/dynamite for blasting or the spaces left from tourmaline crystals that have weathered from the stones. I think I've found a new hypothesis that satisfies the land grab claim of the KRS and the presence of Nordic explorers throughout the Midwest. Below is an excerpt from www.arkansasstonerepair.com:

"Though the evidence eliminates the idea of mooring ships, it does not quite eliminate the idea of early Nordic explorers. Valdimar Samuelsson, a retired airman in Iceland, offers a separate theory.

“In Iceland we have stones with holes,” Samuelsson wrote in an email to the Public Opinion. “I have found some as boundary stones marking farm boundary. They are called the high stone and low stone.”

Holes in stones would have a variety of uses, Samuelsson wrote. Some were mooring stones, but some marked the beginnings and ends of rivers, or marked roads (especially in the winter). Under Medieval Icelandic law, commoners would mark their land by sticking a marking rod into the holes.

Given the Icelander's drive to explore and their sudden disappearance from Greenland, explorers could have traveled as far as the Midwest area, either through Hudson bay or New York state where several stone holes have been found, he said. They could either have been marking their trail or sectioning land off for themselves.

After looking at the GPS coordinates of several notable holes, Samuelsson said he has found a pattern similar to the manner the ancients would section land."

Only because you asked, Only Me. I went on forever and earnestly about stoneholes in previous blogs here. People were gasping and throwing up. Originally, I had named some local stoneholes after both Wolter and Jason. Please go back and read my comments, because I covered most everything...more than once, to Jason's chagrin. Oh well, people are still interested.

I had taken my site down for awhile, but I think it is a good idea to let anyone see a good, prime example of what I believe to be an aged, triangulated, hand-made, stonehole, as seen on the mis-named Viking Altar Rock. I have many photos of these holes that I took myself. They are a mystery to many, but the most obvious answer is just what you came up, Only Me: land markings.

Fairly recently, I came to the conclusion that clusters of stoneholes were probably associated with a particular carving in the midst which might indicate WHO made and owned the stoneholes. Like branding cattle with the same iron. It is the most logical solution. The stoneholes in the upper Mid-west weren't for mooring ships, which is now an uncovered fantasy that some still want to believe in, as though Runestone Hill could have been a medieval shipping hub!

http://www.hallmarkemporium.com/discoveries/id4.html

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Only Me

9/17/2013 02:10:09 pm

Well, that answers why I couldn't look at the photos of the metal object you found. I've been trying to find anything that remotely resembles it, but so far the closest item I've found is a counter-weight for an old shop scale. Not really sure that would be used in the field.

As for mooring stones...uh, no. With just the studies done in the Whetstone Valley alone, there is no physical evidence for water levels to be high enough, for the areas where the stone holes are found, for Norse longships to "dock".

I've read your past comments, so I'm familiar with your ideas. I was trying to reconcile the various claims- sacred geometry/location markers/grid map- with actual examples of such use(s). Unfortunately, it seemed no one would provide such a source/example, until I found the article with Valdimar Samuelsson.

Hey, you just got me to wonder whether or not the Norrmen were from Iceland, since they had a propensity for making holes in stones. In other words, did Swedes use stoneholes? Did those from Norway? I mentioned the Norrmen house in Finland, but what about stoneholes elsewhere, in Europe. I had read about Valdimar's comments before, in considering the uses of stoneholes, but I didn't give myself a strong enough nudge to consider Iceland as being the home of the 22 Northmen.

Really, would Olaf had considered the word? I don't know. I wish some native Scandinavians would look into this word more closely.

I listened to Wolter's interview, above, and I really disagree with him about the men dying of disease, and now, about the runestone having been buried, originally. He tied in the stonehole rocks encircling Runestone Hill with the runestone, but I think it is likely the hill was already encircled with these stonehole rocks before the massacre. I think the runestone memorial was erected on the hill because of the pre-existing stonehole rocks. In other words, people might be coming back to the encircled hill in the future, anyway, so then the KRS would be there, too. I suppose this because the surviving 10 men wouldn't take the time and make the noise necessary for all that stonehole making. Carving the runestone, 3 miles east of the Chippewa River, on Runestone Hill, yes, but not taking the plenteous time to both locate and make holes into rocks...especially if some kind of sacred geometry is being considered, too.

The KRS has a distinct ground line on it, which means that it was in an erected position for a very long time before it either toppled over, or was toppled over, face down.

If sacred geometry was used at Runestone Hill, using the dozen or more stonehole rocks, it was probably used for a purpose other than hiding the KRS. I believe it is possible that sacred geometry was used at Runestone Hill, but before the placing of the runestone. How long before is the question? What did the visitors in 1362 know about the stoneholes and Runestone Hill, as pre-existing?

Ley-line hub, ending on a knoll? A spot representing some kind of exactitude? Only Me, I believe I've developed part of a grid pattern in the region, especially when considering that a line runs from Duluth through Runestone Hill, and on to the Whetstone River area where many, many other stoneholes are. In other words, a straight line runs from where the "ship/s" were near Duluth, and where two main spots of stoneholes are located. Coincidence? So then, who would use such mapping skills...or even sacred geometry, to carve up the land. I speculatively envision a grid pattern emanating out from Runestone Hill, possibly both locally and continent-wide.

At any rate, the area is quite close to the very center of North America. Why would these people come out to the exact middle of nowhere, instead of stopping off along the way? I believe there's a lot more going on up here, historically, than we yet know about. I don't care who the Norrmen were; I'd just like to know who they were, as a matter of historical record.

It seems that maybe there was purposeful obfuscation in the exact identity of most of the men, unless the term Norrmen was well-understood at the time. In that case, I'd like to know what it meant.

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Only Me

9/18/2013 11:07:50 am

I'm thinking the term *Norrmen* was well understood. Norrmen is Swedish in origin, and at the time, Sweden was made of three lands: Gotaland, Svealand, NORRLAND. Since the people occupying these lands considered them to be separate, distinct homelands, it would make sense that the inscription makes the distinction between *Gotalanders* and *Norrmen*. This would be like modern day exploration/scientific parties, that list the team members by nationality.

If Olaf knew of the term, he may have in the context of a surname. Norrland had a population composed of Sami, Kvens and different tribes/people related to the Finns. Swedish and Norwegian settlers tended to stick to the south. Norrmen became a Swedish surname, and was Anglicized (am I correct?) into Norman. The other option, is that he knew the term as applying to Norwegians (as on the KRS), or as an older, generalized reference to anyone from Norrland.

As to the "ground line" on the KRS, check out www.kensingtonrunestone.us.

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Gunn

9/18/2013 02:29:41 pm

"Norrmen is Swedish in origin, and at the time, Sweden was made of three lands: Gotaland, Svealand, NORRLAND."

Okay, now we're getting somewhere! Do you have a handy reference source for Norrland? So you think Norrmen are from Norrland, Sweden? So then, the KRS is saying that all the men were Swedish, some from Southern Sweden, but most from Northern Sweden? This all seems logical.

For a while, I had on my website a large, white, flat-topped rock I found in SD, which has a slab knocked out of it from an aged, triangulated stonehole. What's funny is that I had also found, online, an exact shaped rock, a runestone with a purposely flattened top...from Gotaland, of all places.

The KRS is beginning to take on a more Swedish flavor than I had previously thought. I wonder who, from medieval Sweden, may have been interested in sacred geometry? I asked Hendrick Williams if stoneholes were found in Sweden, and his answer was basically, no. Where did the Swedes get the idea for stonehole making, or does this show that perhaps most of the stoneholes found in this region predate the KRS?

It's not out of the question to think that Vikings had something to do with the stoneholes, earlier than the KRS. And what of Swedish Templars--more properly, Templar-influenced Swedes? Is this whole "operation" in SD and MN a Swedish thing, but encompassing hundreds of years, or perhaps a shorter period, say between the end of the Viking age and 1362?

At any rate, thanks for the input.

Even with the supposed ground line actually being a modern staining, that doesn't do away with the hypothesis of the stone having been erected, initially. I can see it either way, but to believe it was buried entails also believing a method of re-finding it was devised...which could involve sacred geometry using the stonehole rocks encircling Runestone Hill, most likely. I have, in fact, come up with a geometric grid for Runestone Hill, a complete grid jumping off Wolter's experimentation in The Hooked X. There is some question about exactly where the runestone was found, and whether both stonehole rocks at the Park were moved there (they both were) for display. However, if my conclusions are still valid, a cut-jewel design emerges, with an X in it...and the runestone was found where a hook in the X would be, on the ground. In other words, I think I discovered the manner returning explorers would use to re-locate the runestone within the encirclement of stonehole rocks. That's if the KRS was buried. But again, maybe the encirclement was for a different reason, an earlier reason, in which case simply erecting the stone might be sufficient to later come back and find it...it being primarily a memorial stone; although it would prove Scandinavian, possibly Swedish, origin, which may have been related to a land claim of some proportion. If so, it is truly ironic that so many Swedes would end up coming here...again, hundreds of years later.

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Only Me

9/18/2013 05:17:47 pm

Let me see if I can be clearer on the Norrland connection. I got my info from Wikipedia, but what caught my eye was the mention of tribes/peoples related to the Finns. You brought up Norrmen House, in *Finland*...connect one. Norrland was one part that made up modern Sweden, and according to ancestry.com, Norrmen was Swedish in origin...connect two. Svealand was the name of the land located between Gotaland and Norrland, and is the source of the modern name, Sweden, for the whole country...connect three. Gotaland, also known by its older name, Geatland (motherland of famed hero, Beowulf), was the last land, located south...CONNECT FOUR!

So, UNLESS "Norrmen" applied to northern peoples *outside* of Sweden, then yes, our intrepid explorers were entirely Swedish (in accordance with the KRS inscription). Now, the language of the inscription has been identified as a mixture of Swedish and Norwegian, so perhaps, norrmen referred to the Norwegians, too.

Thanks a lot of adding more information. I was greatly curious about this, though I'll admit the reason is that I intended to look for "Templar" or perhaps Cistercian connections to whomever the Norrmen were. Now, perhaps we can see what kind of actual Templar connections Old Sweden had...I mean, during the Crusades. I would like to find out the degree of "Templarism" in Sweden at the time of Black Friday, 1307, if there was any at all. Or, perhaps the expedition in 1362 was more a Cistercian thing. When did Crusade activity involving Sweden (perhaps Norway, too, as you say concerning Norrmen) end? This may be a way of trying to figure out if there was any "Templar" influence in medieval America, by Swedes, even going back decades or a few centuries before the mid-Fourteenth Century. In other words, perhaps those who created the "evidences" in MN and SD came primarily from Sweden...but over a longer period of time. But where did they get the influence or notion to mark up land using stoneholes? Perhaps Norway or Iceland somehow come into the picture, possibly even Swedish Vikings. Unfortunately, no stoneholes have been dated, though I believe it is possible to do so by locating the stone chips still buried in soil and finding collateral carbon dating samples.

I put up another page on my website so you can see the possible geometric design at Runestone Hill. I don't stand by the hypothesis 100%, but it was fun speculation...although it took up several hours of my time. I've also uploaded the runestone/stonehole comparison rocks (from Gotaland and from Wilmot, SD) so you can see them, just for fun.

I invite further input, since Jason has so graciously afforded the flipped-open door on the KRS. This proves out what I was saying about not closing a subject off...with a collaborative effort, more pertinent information can be acquired. I really am looking for simple facts, truth, to back up my own opinion that the KRS is genuine. Again, it is also because of the "big picture" or preponderance of everything mixed together, not just the runestone itself.

I don't think there are hidden meanings in the message of the KRS, though I wonder why no specific person or persons were mentioned. There seems to have been a degree of secrecy which makes one wonder, why the lack of more specific identities? Why didn't it seem to matter? Was this more an "individual" thing, or an expedition representing a group, such as Templar remnants, or unknown monks, even?

Only Me

9/19/2013 07:56:40 am

But, Gunn, I thought you had ceded any connection between the KRS and the Templars, even dropping Sinclair from your pen name, as a sign of your shifting paradigm? I guess old Scott rekindled a dormant ember, eh? Not trying to be provocative, just ribbing you.

If I may, I'm going to include some excerpts that demonstrate how convoluted the KRS history is...and why I'm still unable to state that it is a hoax or genuine artifact with any degree of certainty.

"What, though, of the difference between the purported date of the stone and the much earlier date of the voyages to Vinland? He pointed out that there appeared to be records of a voyage west from Norway in 1355, in search of the colonists in Greenland, who had been out of contact for some years (indeed, there was a report in 1348 that the colonists had vanished). In the autumn of 1354, King Magnus Eriksson (1316-1374; King Magnus IV of Sweden 1319-1364 and King Magnus VII of Norway 1319-1343), commissioned Pål Knutsson, a government officer from Bergen, to sail to Greenland to assess conditions there. Knutsson’s expedition would thus have been led by a Norwegion, under the direction of a Swedish king. Holand believed that, finding the Greenland colony deserted, Knutsson spent many years searching for the lost colonists, evidently reaching Minnesota in 1362, where he and his companions may have perished."
"More serious is the objection of context. There is no evidence that Pål Knutsson’s expedition was ever assembled or set out. Although there were occasional contacts with Greenland in the later fourteenth century, its economic importance had declined as there was no longer a market for narwhal and walrus ivory. A merchantman, Bauta Hluti, was fitted out for the voyage in 1366 and was known as the Grœnlands Knörr; after it was lost at sea in 1369, it was not replaced. The last contact seems to have been in 1385, when the Olafssudinn, a ship from Greenland arrived in Norway; it had spent two years in Iceland before travelling to Scandinavia. The passengers reported the death of Álfur, Bishop of Garðar (the cathedral city in Greenland’s Eastern Settlement), in 1379; although successors continued to be appointed until the Reformation, none ever visited their diocese. By this date, even visits to Iceland were uncommon. There were sporadic trips between Iceland and Greenland into the early fifteenth century, but the Western Settlement had long been abandoned. If Pål Knutsson had reached Greenland, he would have encountered Scandinavian settlers living in reduced circumstances from their heyday a century before, but there would have been no need to spend the next nine years looking for others. The reason for journeying into the heart of the North American continent vanishes."
"The language of the stone has always caused problems. Although early sceptics criticised the rune forms, it has been found that many of them are attested in the medieval period. Rather, it is the words and their grammatical forms that have caused most linguists to reject the inscription. Instead of regular fourteenth-century Norse or Swedish, the inscription is a mixture of the two languages. No matter, say the believers: the party was composed of both Goths and Northmen, so a mixing of languages could be a result of the dictation of the the text by a Swede and its carving by a Norwegian. However, there are further problems. The grammar makes more sense in a nineteenth-century Swedish context than a late medieval. There is also a word – opþagelsefardþ that is unattested during the Middle Ages. Indeed, it was an obscure word that was popularised by the Norwegian historian Gustav Storm (1845-1903) in his 1888 work on Vinland, Studier over Vinlandsreiserne, Vinlands Geografi og Etnografi, parts of which had been serialised in an American Swedish language newspaper in 1889. The very word opdagelse did not enter the Scandinavian languages until the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and borrows from Dutch opdagen and German aufdecken, both deriving from the French décovrir, “discover’, itself a spelling not attested before the sixteenth century."
"To make matters even more complex, Wolter associates the inscription with a group of Knights Templar, whom he hypothesises fled Europe following the suppression of their order in 1312. "
"Wolter’s evidence is based on cryptograms, which are rarely a good starting point for historical hypotheses."

I found this at http://www.badarchaeology.com/?page_id=1311. The page has a robust history of the KRS. Maybe, there is no connection to the Cistercians or Templars, at all....and adding those elements only further confuses the issue of the KRS itself.

No, I haven't ceded any possible connection between the KRS and Templars. I did back away some, though, since it became apparent that the Hooked X was used by Christians other than Templars, too, not so exclusively by Templars or Templar remnants. Now I'm more open to other possibilities. Somebody decided to use hooked X runic characters back in 1362. I still think likely candidates are Swedes with Templar-remnant connections, deploying secretly, or as Wolter speculates, Cistercian monks possibly in association with some kind of protective order. Obviously, the men didn't go inland unarmed.

Yes, my paradigm on the Sinclairs has shifted, though I still believe there is a connection between Templars, Sinclairs and Freemasons. Henry Sinclair coming to America may be a myth, but I still wonder why two different groups of Native Americans representing the East Coast (Vinland) and Runestone Hill, MN area both deal with alike stories. Have both groups of Native Americans been taken in by the myth, or could one or both be correct or partially correct? So I leave the door open on this just a crack, about like a Pandor's Box.

You say, "Maybe, there is no connection to the Cistercians or Templars, at all....and adding those elements only further confuses the issue of the KRS itself."

Yes, I can agree with that. One can get a pretty clear picture of what happened if nothing is added, but we just want to see more, so we speculate. But logic still has to dictate...such as in the murder/disease debate. Logic and cross-referenced archaeological history from nearby early 1300's SD indicating mass scalping show what most likely happened. The disease speculation is nonsense when looked into. The 20 men were a group, only splitting up with some going fishing and some staying back that day. How is the disease going to strike just one group of ten, killing them all that day, yet none of their companions they were just with got sick? This is political correctness going too far.

Of course, the Magnus/Knutsen hypothesis is just that, speculation. Yes the Runestone Park still delivers the fake history as fact, kind of like with the mooring stoneholes signage, unless these things have recently been taken down. That community is the Runestone's own worst enemy, especially with Big Ole the Viking declaring that Alexandria is the Birthplace of America...right across from the Runestone Museum!

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Cort Lindahl

3/1/2016 05:46:21 pm

The KRS was left by descendants of the Normans that Mr. Wolter suspects. If you examine the history of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Douglas family it all becomes clear. The KRS lies on the border of Hudson's Bay Company/ Red River Colony and Louisiana. There are some references of La Salle and La Moyne d'Iberville mentioning boundary stones for Louisiana with "foreign writing" on them. There is a high probability that a family group that was very proud of their descent from George Washington knew of the Kensington Stone and what it really was. They also displayed similar values in the construction of a Catholic Monastery and Cathedral in Minneapolis, a Stonehenge reproduction in Washington State, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Their family also intermarried with the Marquette family. The symbols on the KRS that are so widely discussed seem to be present on the Archer Reliquary in Jamestown matching my already existing theory that this is where the symbols on the KRS originated. The French Norman overtones that Mr. Wolter is seeing are more the result of men like Marquette, d'Iberville, and the Comte de Maurepas. The context that Louis Buff Parry puts his sandstone pillar in is closer to the historical era in which the KRS was first deposited. This would have had to have been after the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company when considering the Louisiana border the stone lies on. So KRS was likely put there in the 1670's. Sure people could have come long ago. That likely is not what is going on here. Thanks.

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